Upbit Delays Korean Won, Bitcoin and USDT Trading by One Hour

By Nathan Brooks

Upbit, a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, delayed the reopening of its Korean won (KRW), Bitcoin (BTC) and USDT markets until 5 p.m. ET Sunday, Nov. 8 (22:00 UTC), one hour later than planned. The postponement came after Upbit said server maintenance had finished “ahead of schedule.”

At noon ET Sunday, equivalent to 2 a.m. Monday in South Korea, Upbit began server maintenance and initially estimated about five hours of work. That estimate pointed to a 5 p.m. ET finish. After ending the server work early, the exchange announced a “phased return to trading” for 4 p.m. ET.

Before the affected markets reopened, Upbit moved the target back by 60 minutes to 5 p.m. ET. The revised notice therefore separated the completion of infrastructure work from the restoration of trading, even though the first milestone arrived early.

The schedule changed at the trading restart

The revision replaced the earlier 4 p.m. ET target for KRW, BTC and USDT with 5 p.m. ET Sunday, Nov. 8, or 22:00 UTC. The exchange applied that revised opening target to all three markets. Upbit’s account identified the additional hour as a postponement of trading rather than an extension of server work.

Deposit and withdrawal services have a different timetable. Upbit plans to resume them in stages after trading restarts and queued orders have been processed. The exchange has not assigned those services a separate clock time, so their return does not have a fixed public deadline independent of the market opening and order queue.

Server completion and market reopening remained separate

Upbit treated server maintenance and market activation as separate stages. Its first announcement said the work had finished “ahead of schedule” and set a phased return for 4 p.m. ET. A subsequent notice then delayed that return by one hour before the KRW, BTC and USDT markets opened.

The sequence locates the operational change. Upbit completed its server work, but completion did not automatically activate the affected markets. The service sequence also included queued-order processing. The extra hour therefore came during the transition back to service, not in the reported duration of maintenance.

What does the delay change for traders?

For traders, the practical effect is an additional 60-minute wait for access to the three affected markets. The earlier 4 p.m. ET target no longer applies; 5 p.m. ET does. Queued orders remain part of the exchange’s processing sequence, while staged deposit and withdrawal resumptions follow the trading restart.

For customers using KRW, BTC or USDT, the absence of a separate time for deposits and withdrawals leaves the funding timetable tied to execution. Upbit has linked those services to the restart and queue processing rather than to a second fixed deadline. Customers therefore cannot treat 5 p.m. ET as a simultaneous reopening of trading, deposits and withdrawals.

The next checkpoint

Upbit’s next hard checkpoint is 5 p.m. ET Sunday, Nov. 8, for the KRW, BTC and USDT markets. After trading restarts, the exchange will process queued orders and resume deposits and withdrawals in stages. Because it has set no separate funding-service time, customers must wait for that sequence rather than a second fixed deadline.